


Feeding Day the 6th

by Ariasune



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fanciful descriptions of brutalizing ones own mind, Gen, Switch the Beat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9296459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariasune/pseuds/Ariasune
Summary: “Galra eat one time in a cycle. They are… new on Feeding Day.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Demenior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demenior/gifts), [mademoisellePlume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Little Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877566) by [Demenior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demenior/pseuds/Demenior). 



> I wholeheartedly recommend reading [Tomorrow, I'll Switch the Beat](https://archiveofourown.org/series/534103). This piece is intended as a dedication to [Little Monster, Ch 5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7877566/chapters/20127274), and takes place during Shiro's escape.
> 
> This piece is 100% self-indulgent.

You cannot gain, without first giving something in return. This he knows, this Champion understands. There has only been one act of creation in the universe: its beginning. After that, everything is lost, piece by cooling piece.

If he stays – he has to go back, he has to – she will do worse than kill him, she will consume him. Tap into his strength, his blood, _everything_ , and drain it dry. If he leaves – he must run, he must – then she will rot him from the inside out, claim him no matter how far he reaches, careless of the distance he puts between them. He cannot exist without her, as though their veins have been sewn together, as though he has done it to himself, sutured them shut.

He cannot exist, not anymore, not without her, no, but he can still survive. He has survived this far, he can survive a little more. He will build himself anew, remake himself, rise up.

But Champion cannot start from nothing, he cannot conjure because conjuration refuses to exist, and sacrifice is the only language magic speaks. You cannot gain, without first giving something in return, and so he reaches inwards. He presses into the flesh of his mind, and- _and_ _remembers_.

He remembers the taxxon. He remembers it starving. He remembers it turning on itself, remembers heaving chunks of wormflesh slipping down its throat, remembers snake turning on tail on teeth on self. Remembers the splash of his reflection in the Gedd's eyes. Remembers the vitreous fluid dripping down his jaw. 

He remembers defiantly refusing to kill, remembers the smug satisfaction of certain death, he remembers the piss-reek horror of waking up.

 **Now** — now he thinks he understands. _At last_ , understands the difference between being consumed, and consuming.

Champion sets his teeth on himself, and wrenches, _tears_ , _shreds_ , and swallows before he can stop himself. Bitter tasting memories, the sweet-sour of feelings, the rotting sugar-stink of his self, and he eats, and he eats, and he _eats_ away at his own mind.

You cannot create from nothing, you cannot begin nowhere. He is not creating, he is remaking through the shape of his own teeth, his own hands, his own—

He cannot exist without her, and _she_ cannot have him. It is an unruly, childish act; horrific, even. The taxxon curling on itself and gobbling its guts away. You cannot have me, you cannot have me, you cannot, my life is not yours to spare, but mine to take. It is a violent act, it is a satisfied act, it is an act of ownership.  The feeding leaves a filthy puddle of mind in his skull, the stench of his psyche as he opens it up, and licks his thoughts out, like seeds from a fruit.

He hasn’t eaten fruit in so long. The wet crunch of drawing his teeth through the gleaming flesh— he hasn’t eaten fruit in so very long. The memory is there though, a fragile thing soaked in blood. He passes over it. The next thought is sharp, coppery, and he barely waits before he rips it open, and swallows it piece by cooling piece.

The more he eats, the less there is of him, of Champion – Champion, Champion – and the weaker he gets, the less of him he eats. His last name, his rescue of Matt, his father teaching him how to brew coffee, his first crush, Malch's suffocating warmth, how to beg deep and low and loud in Galra. He eats everything he can reach, leaves less and less alone, but reaches less, eats weakly, disappears piece by piece, until there is almost nothing of Champion left. There is a riddled, rotten roadkill of a personality left behind, and its first act of violence is an ending, not a beginning.

The New Self, Unnamed Self, opens its jaws, tilts back its head, and swallows Champion’s name whole.


End file.
